Ozzie Smith Makes Hall Of Fame Look Easy Too

January 9, 2002|By Mike Berardino Staff Writer

For 19 seasons Ozzie Smith made the breathtaking look easy.

Widely considered the premier defensive shortstop in baseball history, Smith did it again Tuesday. Baseball's Wizard of Oz won election to the Hall of Fame on his first try, securing 91.7 percent of the vote by the Baseball Writers' Association of America.

Smith became just the 37th elected on the first ballot.

"I never admired my work; I just did it," Smith said Tuesday from home in suburban St. Louis. "But since I retired I've had a chance to sit down and look at some plays I made on tape. You know what? I was good."

Smith, the only player in this year's class, punctuated his momentary lapse into hubris with a small laugh. The former St. Louis Cardinal and San Diego Padre laughed often during a career that included 13 consecutive Gold Gloves, three World Series appearances, nightly backflips as he took his position and countless hits turned into outs by his defensive acrobatics.

"I'd hit these bullets up the middle, balls nobody else could possibly get to," recalled former outfielder Warren Cromartie, now a radio talk-show host in South Florida. "Ozzie would have me going back to the dugout, shaking my head. He'd be out there laughing, shaking his finger at me: `No, no, no, Cro.'

"Thanks to Ozzie Smith, I learned how to pull the ball."

The news was not as good Tuesday for two of Cromartie's former teammates with the Montreal Expos.

Catcher Gary Carter, a former Marlins broadcaster, fell 11 votes shy of the 354 required for election. Former outfielder Andre Dawson, despite 438 home runs and eight Gold Gloves, finished fifth in his first crack with 45 percent.

Dawson, now a special assistant in the Marlins front office, would have become the first former Marlins player to reach Cooperstown. The Miami native spent the final two years of his 21-year career in teal.

Players must be named on 75 percent of the ballots to gain election. Also falling short were outfielder Jim Rice and closer Bruce Sutter, who finished third and fourth, respectively, at just over 50 percent.

A switch-hitter, Smith finished with a .262 batting average, nearly 2,500 hits and 580 stolen bases but was known primarily for his glove.

"Momentum is not just offense," Smith said. "Momentum can be defense, too. I prided myself on being able to change the momentum of a game simply by making a great defensive play."

Smith's career arc changed considerably 20 years ago with a six-player winter trade that sent him from San Diego to St. Louis. Smith had become embroiled in a contact dispute with then-owner Joan Kroc, who at one point suggested he make up the difference in salary by working as her gardener.

Understandably miffed, Smith waived his no-trade clause to start over in America's heartland. He went from a perennial loser to a tradition-steeped franchise that would win the World Series in his first season at Busch Stadium.

Along the way he remade his body and his image, learning to hit the ball on the ground and utilize his blazing speed.

Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog made a bet with Smith. Each time Smith struck out or hit the ball in the air, he would owe Herzog $1. For each groundball, Herzog would give Smith $2.

"By July I was down $312," Herzog said this week. "I called him in and said, `I think you've got the idea.' It wasn't that he had the idea. I was broke."

Smith, 135 pounds when he signed as a fourth-round pick out of Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo, hit just .231 with one home run in four seasons with the Padres. In 15 with the Cards, he hit .272 with 27 homers.

"The first thing was understanding what type of player I was," Smith said. "I was smart enough to know I wasn't a home-run hitter. I knew I had good speed and had to keep the ball on the ground. Once I learned to stay on top of the ball, all the other things began to make sense."

Smith's most famous moment at the plate came in the bottom of the ninth inning in Game 5 of the 1985 National League playoffs. He hit a game-winning homer off Dodgers closer Tom Niedenfuer, the first homer from the left side of Smith's career.

"Go crazy, folks," Hall of Fame Cardinals broadcaster Jack Buck said on the air as the series headed west. The Cardinals won Game 6, then dropped the World Series in seven games to Kansas City.

Smith's final days in St. Louis were marred by controversy when new manager Tony La Russa came in and replaced him with Royce Clayton. Smith felt disrespected and retired at season's end.

He considered a comeback in the spring of 1998 with the San Francisco Giants but decided against it. The dapper and thoughtful Smith has spent the past several years providing television commentary for CNN/Sports Illustrated.

Tuesday, however, was no time for controversy. Instead, Smith sipped champagne and toasted the crowning achievement of his career as he prepared to carry the Olympic torch later that evening.

"Today answers all of that," he said. Then laughing, he added: "My skills as a baseball player were probably much better than my skills as a gardener."